Dachau

To begin the day, I took my usual venture into the park for my morning run. I went further than usual and stumbled upon a dam that was on a large river. It was a very scenic sight to behold. The dam was not like the Grand Coulee Dam, but more similar to the smaller dams in Spokane, although the river has much less of a vertical drop than does the Spokane River.

Main hall in Dachau

Fence around Dachau,
complete with ditch, barbed
wire, electric fence, and
wall

Entrance into Dachau

Upon my return and after eating breakfast, the group left for Dachau, a concentration camp outside of Munich. I believe this was an extremely sobering experience for the whole group. The camp was a forced labor camp that held political prisoners, criminals, homosexuals, gypsies, and, during the later stages of the war, Jewish people. We first entered through a gate that contained the inscription "Work makes you free", an ironic statement that is truly horrifying. There were work projects that were completely pointless, such as moving a huge pile of sand across a street for ten hours without a break, and then the next day moving it right back. Many people died of exhaustion.

Prisoner beds in barracks

Sign in area where prisoners were
first stripped and had all belongings
taken. Sign says "no smoking",
which was absurd because the
prisoners would have no cigarettes
anyways

Prison cell

We then entered the area where the prisoners would first come to be stripped of all of their identity and personality and saw the jail cells where some prisoners were held. There were some cells we couldn't see anymore that were only large enough to stand in, and some prisoners were held in these dark standing cells for 14 days
straight.

Area where barracks once stood

Another horror we learned about were the living conditions. We saw a rebuilt barrack where the prisoners were forced to stay. At the creation of the camp, each building was supposed to hold 200 prisoners, which would be a cramped condition considering there were only forty toilets and even fewer wash stations. However, by the end of the war, there were 2,000 people forced to live in each building, and they were only given thirty minutes in the morning for all of the inmates to clean up and use the restroom. I cannot even imagine what this could have meant for the hygiene of the camp and the overall standard of living; it must have been unbearable.

Entrance to gas chamber,
with painted label "shower"

Crematorium with four "ovens"

Inside of Gas Chamber

The most horrifying thing we saw, in my opinion, was the crematorium and gas chamber. There was originally not a crematorium at Dachau, but as the population and mortality rate increased, the SS built a crematorium at the camp. As the camp grew even more, they built a second crematorium with four "ovens" and a gas chamber. We walked through the second, larger crematorium, including the rooms where the bodies were put before being cremated, and through the gas chamber. The door entering the gas chamber had painted above the entrance the word "shower" to trick the inmates who were about to be executed. This experience made me sick to my stomach, and was extremely sad.

Underneath cathedral

Painting on ceiling of side
chapel in cathedral

Statue of St. Ulrich outside
cathedral

We then finished up our tour and went back to Augsburg. Many of us, including myself, took a nap back at the hotel. I then went for a walk around the city and checked out the largest

cathedral in the city. It was very beautiful, with a large alter area, beautiful paintings, and many choir seats. It also had a lower area beneath the choir area in the back that had a small alter and tomb. This was a really neat sight. Our whole group then met back up and went to dinner at a restaurant in town. Tomorrow we have to wake up early for Nuremberg, so I think it will be an early night for us all.